Down the Highway
by Zelost-Mind
Summary: Sam, Dean, OFC. A short stay with an old friend. Some het.


**Down the highway**

R. Complete. Approx. 6,280 words.

**A/N: **Sam, Dean, OFC. Outsiders POV. A very short stay with an old friend. (1st of three)

* * *

I hafta stop what I'm doing, make certain I'm not hearing things, 'cause word around was that they died, but there's no mistaking the sound of the V8 in that monster car he drives. I could hear it coming down the road even over the buzz of the gun in my hand. Granted my ears are a little sharper than average.

"Be right back, you look like you could use a break anyways...five minutes, _don't_ touch it." This guy wants his girlfriends name, _Courtney_, bold and bright, right across his chest. I told'm that was dumb, and it'd cost him, _and_ it'd hurt like Hell, but the fucker didn't believe it. The outline's done anyway, worst part over, not that I'm telling him that.

When I walk out to the front, snapping off the gloves, he's leaning on the glass counter, looking at all the metal inside, totally ignoring the sign that says _'Please don't fucking lean on the glass'_. Got a friend with'm too.

"You here to rob me?" He looks up, rolls them girls eyes over a slow smile on his face. I was always telling him to smile more. Maybe he shouldn't though, 'cause it's kinda blinding when he does it and means it.

"Lookin' for a place to hole-up, actually...just for a couple'a nights," he says. I nod, surprised he didn't just head right on up to the apartment and scare the living shit out of me later. Must be getting mature if he passed up an opportunity like that.

"No problem...The cops aren't after you are they? I'll tell'em you held me hostage, man, can't have you tarnishing m'rep." I finally get close enough to pull him in for a hug. He doesn't resist, which is new, and I must smell pretty gross too, disinfectant and latex, but I know for sure that he's been covered in worse smelling women than me. Least I _smell_ sanitary.

"Thanks. Uh...This is Sam, y'know? Sam?" Dean moves away from me, pats 'Sam' on his shoulder.

I don't know Sam, but boy have I heard 'bout'm. All John and Dean ever talked about was this kid, Caleb gushed 'bout 'im too. How Sammy would have known this, and Sammy'd be able to tell us about that... He ain't what I expected though, the way Dean talked about him, made him sound like some little bookworm, geeky, emo-kid.

This guy right here, he _ain't_ little, No Sir. He don't look like no geek neither. I could friggin' kill Dean, bringing this fucking God-like boy into my shop when I got my hair done up with Biro's and look exactly like I got a cramped days work under my skin.

The way Sam's smiling at me, though, you'd think I'm the most beautiful woman he's ever laid eyes on, an' I'm willing to bet there weren't too many girls before me who didn't feel the same way for that grin a'his. I grin back. No mistaking he's a Winchester.

"Nice t'see you Sam, heard a lot bout'choo. I'm Fay, I own this joint," I tell him. His hand completely swallows mine. Bet it bothers Dean to no end that his kid got bigger'n him.

"Yeah, hi, I gotta admit, I haven't heard a lot about you, but from Dean's description? You're not what I was expecting," Sam says.

He's smooth. I can tell just by that one sentence that he's gonna be more honest and easier to talk to than his brother ever will be. Either that or he's a better actor, unlikely though. Dean's an impossible act to follow in that department, never seen anyone like it, even out-did his daddy. Sam makes good eye contact for a man too. I like him already.

"Yeah, ditto," I tell him. Dean isn't paying attention to us any more, 'attention span of a fish if he ain't hunting something', John once told me, and Dean proves it more true every time I see'm. He's looking at up some cliché tiger amongst all the other clichés taped to my walls.

"Hey, I ain't payin' you t'entertain comp'ny here, girly." I sigh and sincerely hope Courtney's banging one of his toothless buddies.

"Go lay down, I'm coming now." Freakin' guy's been nothing but a jackass since he walked in here. I turn back to Dean and Sam, both of them lookin' back behind me, eyebrows raised in amusement at the half drunk hill-billy with the bloody, swollen chest. They're more brothers than they think they are.

"Why'nt you two head up? I'll be done with this guy in twenty...Help yourselves to whatever you can scrounge up from the kitchen..." All they'll find is chocolate, frozen vegetables, Doritos and dog food. I know I got Soy sauce up there too, somewhere.

"Key?" Dean's the king of dumb questions, I _know_ he remembers the deal with the key.

"As long as you're _welcome_ in my home Dean Winchester, any key you use'll work in these locks..." I recite it to him like a childhood poem.

"Just checking." He sails a smile that'll get him out of any kinda hot water over to me. He could'a _just checked_ by trying his key in the locks. Sam must be a good influence in his life if Dean didn't try to break in first and ask permission later. I snap on new gloves, swap to a thicker needle for the shading in, and listen to them damn heavy boots a'his and the not so soft footsteps of his brother, clomping up the stairs.

Probably should'a warned'em about the dog.

-----------

The Dog's a friggin' traitor. Didn't bark or growl or nothing. Should'a known, mutts stick together.

I finally get up there, after a very long twenty minutes. Sent my red-neck customer on his way with a tube of Savlon and the usual litany of instructions that I know he wont follow.

_Make sure to_ r_ub the cream all over it, into all the corners, don't pick at the scab, keep it out of the sun too much till it's healed. Do Not pick the scab. Keep it clean, it's a healing wound. Try'n take showers, not baths, don't soak it, pat it dry, don't rub it. _

Doubt he takes baths or showers, so I don't gotta worry about that.

"Hey, is this-?" Dean's sprawled on the couch, ankles up on my coffee table, with half a ton of floppy canine in his lap, but looks like he's enjoying it.

"Yep, that's him. Got big, huh? Eating me outta house and home...I'm'a hafta start sending him out to find the neighbourhood cats for 'is dinner."

"You eat cats? Huh, boy? You like eating cattttssesss?" The dogs ears go up sharp at the hiss, gargantuan head tilting back and forth. I swat Dean's shoulder and drop down on the arm on the couch.

"Don't get'm all riled up, and he shouldn't be up on the couch either. Where's your better half? You guys find anything to eat?"

Sam's in the shower, has been for a while according to Dean, and they ordered pizza from one of the flyers I had stuck on the fridge door. Works for me.

We end up in the kitchen, and I'm sitting at the table watching Dean make coffee, watching him remember where I keep the teaspoons and the sugar like he was just here yesterday. Always did have a bang-up memory.

He hasn't changed all that much. Dean always was short of _something_, but it was like being born blind on him-- happened so young, he'd just learned to live with it, and it'd be normal 'cause he hadn't known any different. Something big's different now, but I couldn't tell you what it is.

Seems more like his daddy, the way he's moving in his skin. Like bits have been torn off, but he's still taking stock, not sure what's missing yet, or where from, so he's being careful and protective with the whole lot 'til he figures it out.

His dad's a fine example that some bits never grow back, and you have to choose how you wanna live your life without'em. John would'a never said that or anything like it to Dean, though.

I dunno if I think it's a shame or not, 'cause I could tell he always wanted to be like his old man, but now that he's well on his way to it? He don't look like he's enjoying being the way he is, all that much.

"Stop watching me, you're creepin' me out," Dean says, lifting himself up to sit on a counter top. I don't believe him for a second. Right now he's lookin' at me with a smirk in his expression, all sparkling eyes and pouty lips, fills out a t-shirt a little snugger 'round the shoulders than the last time I saw him too. He's got his peacock feathers out for me to admire, and admire I shall.

I mean, Dean really is a doll, ain't he? You don't get many men as pretty as him. Specially not with the burdens he's got, with knives an'a gun in his belt, dried blood in his stubble and down his fingernails. Hates when anybody says it though, unless he's tryin' to get himself laid.

"How ya doin', Dean?" The question's a joke, 'cause I can guess how he's been doing. I heard about the hell these Winchesters've been through. Everyone did. There was ariel pictures on the local news where it happened, and everyone got an e-mail of'em.

Rumour went around that Dean and his daddy both kicked it when that semi swept'em off the road. He looks and smells and sounds alive to me, even if he resents the fact somewhere deep. It wont change just 'cause he don't like it, though.

Dean smiles, looks like he knows I'm foolin' with him, which is good. He sucks on his bottom lip, lets a layer slip off, the one any other person would have taken off with their boots at the door mat.

"How you doin', Tinkerbell?" He tips his head, mischief taking the years off like magic. I looked 'Tinkerbell' up on-line after the last time he was here and took to calling me that. Ain't as offensive as I thought it'd be. I smile and shrug.

"All the better for seeing you, doll-face." He snorts, shakes his head like I'm talking crazy, hops off the counter and busies himself with his back to me, shunning, showing exactly what he thinks of_ that_ nickname.

-----------

Sam spends almost forty minutes in the bathroom, gets out just in time for the food arriving, says my shower is _awesome_ and feels too good to bother blushing when Dean immediately starts teasing him about what he must've been doing in there all that time.

He notices out loud that there aren't any light bulbs in any of the fittings, seeing as its getting dark out. Dean's a jerk, obviously hasn't told Sam any of my more interesting character traits. I tell Dean where I keep the bulbs, and Sam, bless him, he's too polite to ask, but I can see he's as curious as anyone would be...

"I can see in the dark...Night vision's better than my day vision most of the time...It was dark a lot, where I came from." Alright, so it wasn't the best explanation ever, but it's the truth.

Sam's eyebrows shoot up, surprised, and he looks so child-like for a second that I almost pat him on the head, ruffle that floppy college-boy hair a'his...I don't know how Dean stands it.

But then he's nodding, "Oh." Amused by my revelation, 'cause _of course_, nothing in his life can just be plain and simple as it seems, and he's a cynical, educated twenty-something again. Deep in trouble that he doesn't want, and didn't ask for, and hasn't done a thing to deserve. I don't know how either of them can stand that.

I guess it must be a consolation of sorts, knowing your brother's neck deep in the same shit you are, knowing he's not ever gonna let you drown in it, and vice versa.

------------

We eat straight outta the cartons and boxes, infront of the TV in the living room like real Americans. I use the dog as a footstool, and he lets me, in exchange for my pizza crusts. I find out what they're actually doing here, and it's not running from the law, which is disappointing, but better in the long run.

Turns out they're taking over from Caleb, doing one of the wood rituals near-by. It's nothing real major, small potatoes for hunters like them, just need to re-carve the barrier runes into some trees, say a couple'a payers that go with the ritual. Two man job 'cause the carving's gotta be done the same time as the words are said, and there can't be any fuck ups.

It keeps things out, and has to be repeated every once in a while due to natural corrosion.

Not everything that comes from the _wood_ of the woods plays as nice as I do, or passes for homosapien like I can.

I only got one guest bedroom, and I watch Dean and Sam go through the motions of rock, paper, scissors t'decide who gets the bed, even though it's pretty obvious from where I'm sitting that Dean's gunna take the floor, no matter who wins. He always did when he and his dad stayed here.

I mention to Sam that he can bunk in with me if the fancy strikes him, and I'm just delighted when he actually goes red as a cherry. If I'd known a little flirting would work him up like that I might've been doing it from the start.

I've learned to be more careful about flirting with hunters. John--He'd shut you down, snub you, as soon as it started, joke or no joke. Caleb--He detached himself slow, like an easy let down, didn't recognize if your serious or not and'd rather not take the risk.

Weren't fair experiments though, seeing as I look young enough to be either one of their daughters, not a day over twenty-one as far as any onlooker's concerned.

Dean--Well, you flirt with Dean, he might just jump you and show you the time of your life. Definitely gives as good as he gets, at any rate. And Sam, apparently, gets all wry and shy and mysterious. Men sometimes just don't see a funny side when it comes to flirting and sex, 'specially hunters. They all need to loosen up a little if y'ask me.

Dean wolf whistles and doesn't let up about my offer to his brother, like the cruel teenager he never was, and Sam tells him each time he makes one, exactly where he can shove all of his immature euphemisms.

I miss my family something fierce, watching'em. It's hurts like nothing else can, aching slow all they way from my heart to my throat. Homesick.

I go and get them fresh sheets and pull out the extra quilts for Deans nest that he'll make on the guest room floor, and can't stifle a chuckle of my own, listening to them both laugh out at something boy-ish and rude about somebodies mamma, from a South Park re-run.

----------

Sam takes off the next morning pretty early, his turn t'do laundry and he wants to see the local museums display of age-old something or other, can't say me or his brother were listening all the way, we ain't morning people, that's for sure. Everything's too bright at that time of day.

Lucky for me, I don't have anyone booked 'til eleven, so me and Dean are slow to rise, and he snoozes on the couch while I take the dog out for our morning constitutional. Dean's up and dressed in time to accompany me down to the shop at ten thirty to get set up.

Polo, my little goth apprentice, whose wearing dragon's eye contact lenses today, takes one glance at Dean, lounging on one of the tattoo beds, and gets a severe case of dry mouth. I send him out for coffee.

Good thing we're not busy and Polo wont have to pierce any poor teenage girl's bellybuttons, probably get distracted by Dean's eyelashes and stick a major artery or something.

When I tell Dean as much, he flashes a perfect ten smile and picks another cheesy transfer out of the collection he's flipping through. This one's a love heart with the arrow bursting through it.

He's already got a tri-ceratops between his shoulder blades and an ancient Celtic knot that he's particularly fond of on his left shin.

I stick the heart right where Dean points, in the dip of his hip, and he wanders around the shop all morning, asking the browsers what they think. Driving Polo a little nuts with all the flashes of skin, and no doubt drumming up swarms more under-age customers for me to deal with.

Dean's completely charming, at his flippant-best. Knowing he's got a job tonight so he's not standing around feeling like he's wasting air, he keeps me smiling all morning. Drools and sleazes all over the girl who's booked in to have both her nipples pierced, and she just wraps herself in his attention. Gets himself appointed official opinion giver, before and after, even persuades her to go with rings instead of bars.

When Sam shows up, around midday, Dean tells him to go ahead and pick any tattoo he wants.

"On me Sam, since your birthday's coming up in a few months. We got the best tattooist in the West right here, can't waste a chance like this," Dean says, one arm stretched around Sams shoulders and the other sweeping grandly to encompass the whole shop. I take a mini bow at the praise. Polo hyperventilates for a minute and his fingers turn t'rubber. I tell him to go on a long lunch before he strokes out on me.

"Yeah, thanks Dean...My birthday has already gone, but...Hey, what's that?" Of course Sam heads straight for the back room, where I keep all the sterilizing/sterile equipment. He paws the auto-clave inside out, even gets Dean interested for a minute or two.

Sam gets permission and sits in with me while I fill in the best parts of a whole sleeve piece on one of my regulars. Asking me what qualifications I needed to do what I do, _had no idea it was so complicated._ Asks me what made me want to do it, and listened like a rapt student as I explained all the processes for him.

I tried to leave out the _really_ boring parts, and deliberately left out some of the more interesting but supernatural related parts, even though my client seemed to be dozing off. Geez, but I was sick of the sound of my own voice by the time the sleeve was done and wondering if Sam was pulling my leg, seriously wanting to know about all of that.

My regular woke up when I started dressing his arm, said my trials and tribulations in the body art industry were just the ticket for his insomnia, but Sam was still eager to hear more.

He amazed me, to put it simple. The way I could hear the mixture of his father and his brother in him, like they'd been poured together and accidentally made this ingenious solution. Sam. That was nothing like either of them on the surface.

He sat there like sponge and just absorbed everything I said, humble and intelligent. Attention span like the sky. All I was seeing was this grace that he had, graceful like I've never seen anybody, on the inside. 'Specially not at his age.

He's so open, and boy-ish, just wants to be regular and know about everything he can, 'cause he still_ likes_ learning. He's about the only guy on the planet who wants it that bad, and who can't have it so tragically.

I think he made my year and spoiled it all at once. 'Cause it was breaking my heart a little just looking at'im, but I just couldn't stop. Didn't wanna look away either.

-----------

I find that I'ma woman in desperate need of a lot of drinks after the eye-opening day I'd had, so I watched'em drive away in the direction of the woods, at dusk, then took myself on down to the off-licence and stocked up.

I love the alcohol here. That's one thing I don't ever get homesick for, 'cause we only ever use alcohol for medicinal purposes where I come from. I didn't know, and wouldn't of dreamed, you could add all kinds of flavours and get all jolly from drinking the stuff, 'til I got stuck here.

I buy Amaretto for me, some of the dearer whiskey for Dean, and I've got no idea what Sam drinks so I get him a six-pack of Bud and a few bags of dry roasted peanuts. From what I could gather of the stories John and Dean used to tell, Sam never learned to hold his liquor anyway. 'Sides I got some of that awful tequila stuff at home, y'know? The stuff with the worm? He can spike himself with that if he can't get tanked fast enough on beer.

The guy in the store carded me for the booze, like always, and like always I bitched at him for it. I _own_ the only Goddamn _tattoo parlour_ for miles and miles, and all the locals treat me like I'm some kinda innocent kid who's been ditched and left to fend on her lonesome.

Maybe they all think they know my secrets and feel the need to gossip and keep tabs on my doings out of concern or kindness...Or , hell, maybe all the Stepford wives around here are sick of seeing my dogs gigantic paw prints all over their vegetable patches and having to coax the family cat down from the tree again, and that's why they do it.

It ain't my fault if he likes to chase their cats...If they didn't hiss and run, he wouldn't follow'em. Not like I trained him to do it.

From the looks Fang an' me are getting tonight though, I can tell it's already seeped all over the neighbourhood that two leather clad _men_ showed up in a shiny black muscle car and hung out with me all night and day.

I duck into the grocery market and get some stuff, on the way back...but that's as far as my house-wife instinct'll stretch. I'm happy to provide the food, pre-packaged, but there's no way I'm cookin' it for 'em. My mamma would drop down cold if she were to find out I'd been playing maid to a man. Even a Winchester man.

The dog takes me for our evening run, and we go right past the spot where Dean held up my new puppy, over two and half years ago now, and told me I could choose between Godzilla and Fang, '_cause this guy's gunna be a monster_, petulant that I'd already forbidden any kind of music related name.

Dean didn't ssay much those whole few days he was here. I was no medicine for Deans broken heart, and he didn't do anything to brighten my views on the men I was suddenly surrounded by.

-----------

I'm in the shower when I hear them get back, and the damn dog claws his way out of the bathroom, all bouncing excited, leaves me cursing and wishing I'd learned it how to shut the damn doors behind itself. A draught of cold air rushes in as the dog rushes out, makes me shiver.

"Check out the welcoming party..." I _hear_ the leer in Dean's voice as he saunters into the bathroom, I watch him, a blurred smudge, through the cloudy shower curtain as he comes in and shuts the door behind him. He's not in such a lecherous mood for nothing so I go ahead and guess it all went according to plan.

"No hiccups?" I ask, patting around for my towel, trying not to expose myself.

"Nope, went swimmingly." Dean sounds smug. Ain't like he's the one who thought up that ritual, but I guess it still counts as a win. Another tick on the good side of the 'Good vs. Evil' scoreboard that these hunters keep.

When I pull back the curtain, fully covered so as not t'give him any more idea's, (pretty sure Dean's got idea's enough for half the continent), he just lifts me. Picks me right up and over the side of the bath like I'm easy luggage, and then plants one on me.

It's not the first time we've kissed, and I kiss'im back. Kisses from Dean are demanding, they demand that you like'em and they demand that you reciprocate, so I did.

I can feel his skin singing with adrenaline that he's got left over, roaring to be released, his reason for doing what he's doing, and I feel like a fool when it happens, but that doesn't change that fact that I start shaking like I've been dipped in an icy river as soon as he pulls me flush against him.

It's dumb, 'cause I know he's good inside and I ain't scared of him, not really, and he feels nice. Solid and alive, smelling like outside, brisk air and green woody earth.

I jump like I've been electrocuted when he slips a warm hand into the split of the towel and cups me between the legs. I have to turn my face away from his mouth and suck in air, shaking so hard I feel weak with it.

He's never touched me like that before, it wasn't anything like that last time, and I'm torn right then, when he starts grinding the heel of his hand against me, sends out all the pre-emptive little waves and tingles, but I can't, s'too much.

"Dean..." I grab a-hold of his wrist and he opens his eyes. Looks right into me while I feel his hand spreading me a little, one of his fingers grooving into me. I jump again, blush, but it's not goin' anywhere exactly, he's just playing in the mess he's making, talking me into it without sayin'a thing. He crowds me in a little tighter against the sink, presses his scratchy face into my neck.

"Fay, just...just let me..." He's asking. I want to, somewhere, 'cause he's doing it right so far. Touching me the same way I touch myself--but it feels like my heart's 'bout ready t'explode in my chest, it's beating so wildly I can hear it, remembering, and I can feel my knees knocking together. I'm scared, and it ain't right, I can't. So I tell him.

"Don't Dean...I don't want you to."

When he pulls away, relief floods through me like it's cleansing my soul. I think I'm gunna be sick for a second 'til I look up and he's smiling at me. Dunno what he's so happy about, since I'm pretty sure I just denied him something he wanted. Lord knows what expression's dawning on my face, I feel hot, that's for sure, and it ain't from the shower either.

"Thanks for the whiskey," he says, grinning, rubbing his hands up and down my arms like he's trying to get the circulation back into them even though he knows as well as me that I ain't shivering from the cold. He kisses my forehead.

"I gotta get dry. You two can go'head and get started on that alcohol, give yourselves a head start." I don't even know why he bothered kissing me to begin with, when its clear, right there in the front of his jeans that he needs a whole lot more exercise than my kisses can give'm.

Who knows what goes on in Dean Winchester's head.

"Yeah, sure...You're still _dripping wet_, so you go and get dry and dressed, and I'll get our little party started," he smirks. I'm sure that's what _I_ _just_ said? I bet them tom-cats eyes he's giving me right now and that slow as a drip of thick syrup voice get him a long way with a lot of women, a lot of the time.

He leans against the sink and sucks on his finger like it tastes of sugar, watches me go. Looking like the predator he most certainly is.

------------

A night getting totally trolley'd with the Winchester brothers in't like I expected.

They're don't get all rowdy and loud, competing with shots and games where they try to drink off of their own elbows or foreheads. It ain't anything like that, it's all quiet jokes and critical debates and reminiscing.

That is, unless they're chivalrously holding back for my sake. I doubt it though, they may not be rowdy drunks, but they talk to each other like any brothers would when the hops is a-flowing, and it's impossible to forget that these boys were raised by an ex-Marine. They're both fully equipt with their own second generation Marine vocabulary.

Sam swears more, laughs louder and get the sweetest little lisp that he's hella embarrassed about. The drunker he gets, the more embarrassing stories he tells about _himself. _

I was kinda hoping for some good ol'dirty blackmail material to use on Dean, but Sam's just cracking me and Dean both up with tales of what a freakin' klutz he is, times when he's severely lacked any social decorum...Most of the shit he talks about happened while he was at school, and Dean gets real sober faced through some of them ones, even though he must be as drunk as the rest of us, if not more.

What he's been gulping down all night is almost double the proof percentage of what me and Sam've been drinking.

I have mercy on'm. Figure I owe him one for the bathroom thing earlier. I know he wont mention it ever again, unless I wanted t'drag it up. Dean's good with secrets.

I start telling'em about my first few years _here_. I didn't know about half of the shit anybody ever said to me and Dean was one of the worst. Quoting movies and songs and making all these 'pop-culture' references that just went right over my head.

Sam chuckles and snorts when I tell him I didn't know how to work anything in the apartment, when I first moved in...Asks if I came from the stone ages and does _really bad_ impressions of me scratching my head, looking at the TV, perplexed, tipping the toaster upside down. Thinks he's a real smart-ass.

Dean suggests truth or dare, smiling at me like butter wouldn't melt in that treacherous mouth'a his.

Don't take Sam long, still pretty darn quick, even though he's trashed, to realize for himself that I can't tell a lie, and rather than try'n take advantage with a serious of quick and inappropriate for public places questions, which is exactly what _Dean_ did, Sam just says, "Wow...I'm sorry." Like it's a disability or something? I'm way too drunk to get into the pros and cons of my constant truth telling, so I shrug and ask Dean to tell us all about how he got that scar behind his ear again.

Typical Dean story, one I originally heard from Caleb, who heard it from John, as near t'gleeful as John ever got. I couldn't believe Sam'd never heard it.

Dean was sneaking out of some chicks bedroom window, in his underwear, 'cause her other halfs a boxer and he's coming up the stairs. Dean slipped, cracked his head open on a lawn gnome. Laid out there in the bitter cold, out for the count for about two hours, 'til her husband went out again and the girl found him. She freaked out, thought he was dead...Her neighbours called an ambulance.

Big bad hunter, "Dean-big balls-Winchester, defeated by a lawn ornament." Me and Sam have a bit of a field day with it. Dean sulks until he remembers about the time that Sam shot John in the ass with a tranquillizer dart. Spent nine hours waiting for his dad to wake up and skin him alive...

They laugh and laugh, wide open mouths with all their molars winkin' at me, and it suddenly clicks.

That thing, that big something that was different about Dean? It's just Sam. Yeah, he's missing his dad like he'd miss his lungs or his frontal lobes, but Sam's pulling them both somewhere better than where they'd head if they were going it alone...and both of them are just flailing a little. Unsure.

Dizzy with the constant need for mobilty because if they _stop_, they're gunna fall down...They got momentum building now, and it's going to be useful for something...Something big.

Whatever it is they're saving up all this energy for...I'm really sloshed, so you shouldn't take any thing'm thinking right now in any kind of high regard or anythin'...But these boys, these brothers wrestling sloppily on my couch right now, spilling shots all over my coffee table, with childrens grins on their gorgeous faces. They're gonna do it, y'know? They're gonna make it. You just hafta look at them, listen to them, t'see it.

Just look at'em. They're the good guys in their story, they've just forgotten, for now.

They're going around like it's the first time anybody's ever let'em out in the world unsupervised, not realizing that they're still the heroes here.

-----------

I think I must pass out for a while and when I wake up, groggy, Sam's sitting up on the couch.

Dean's slouched in the space next t'him, breathing soft, face clear of anything. I get the idea that Sam's the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle and Deans just waiting, patient, for him to lay back into place.

I sit up slowly, my heart full of bees wings starting to flap madly. Sam's rod-up-his-ass straight, and lookin' right at me. Lookin' _really fucking _freaked.

"What? Sam?" I whisper even though it might be a good idea to make some noise, wake Dean up...If there's something in he-

"Do you have wings?" Sam's whispering too. I let out the breath I was holding in, grin, nod. These guys are gunna send me grey headed if they stay a day longer.

"My wings're showing? You can see'em?" I blush again, but it's too dark for him to notice. Sam takes a deep breath.

"Yeah...They're like...insect wings, reflect-y... or something...Shit, Fay, did I drink the worm?"

I laugh. S'been'a long time since anybody saw'em. I'm kinda glad it was Sam. "No, I really do got wings...Dean fed the worm to the dog, remember?" The dog'd better not die.

He's drifting back to sleep again, curling into his brother even though it's plenty warm in here. I rest back down on the rug where I was laying relaxed 'fore he near gave me a panic attack.

-----------

I wake up in my own bed, after noon the next day, dunno which one of'em put me there, but I'm sure grateful.

Find Sam in the kitchen making sandwiches and he tells me Dean went out to pick up a few things that they needed from the store, says Fang whined so Dean gave in and took him too.

Sam comes down with me when I call into the shop, t'make sure Polo's handling everything alright. He is, and he straightens up like Sam's his master when he sees us, runs a discreet hand over his 'hawk to make sure it's still erect.

Sam looks through all the ready-made transfers, and when I tell him to go ahead and stick them all over his body, no harm 'cause they wash off, he picks out the same Celtic knot that Dean likes so much.

I hafta bite my lip when I watch him fix it on his left shin.

Then I hafta run, cursing, and lock all the doors to the back rooms, 'cause when Dean comes back he brings the dog straight into the shop with him. Fucking dumbass.

I don't mention Sams choice of transfer t'him, but I do take it out of the book and down from the display after they're gone. Gotta feeling if either one of'em ever want to mark up their bodacious bodies with a tattoo, then that'll be the one, so I need to keep it rare.

They pack their shit in the Impala and leave at around two. Sam hugs me tight, lifts me what feels like a few feet up t'his height, and Dean, never to be outdone, grabs me and tips me over backwards so fast I scream, startled. Then he kisses all over my face while I claw at'm, trying to squirm my way upright.

I stand outside and watch'em head out of town on the same road that brought'em in. Going off to chase down shadows and fight evil. Be the good guys.

-----------

I get a girl come in just before closing, begging me to spend a little extra time putting _Harold_ on her ass cheek. Names Courtney, and it turns out Harold proposed last night and surprised her with a tattoo to declare his life-long commitment to'er. Guess it was true love after all.

I roll my eyes, flip the sign on the door to closed and put the name on her ass.

Guess I'll see'em again in a few years, when the wood ritual near-by needs to be done again.

I'll be here.


End file.
